Rachael Taylor has revealed that "dignity" helped her recover from an abusive relationship.

The 27-year-old Australian actress, who is currently starring in Aussie movie Any Questions for Ben? alongside real-life partner Josh Lawson, said that she forced herself to get "back on course" after being attacked by former boyfriend Matthew Newton in 2010 because it was the only option.

Taylor told The Age: "My main thought was, 'You get back on course right now. Right now is the moment you get back on track and you don't deviate again'. I said to myself, 'You get back on track immediately and you keep your head above water and you hold your head high'. It's dignity, dignity, dignity.

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"It was like coming out of water. It always felt from that moment that actually my life went back into living colour. It wasn't because the attention was exciting - the attention was daunting - but my self-esteem suddenly flared back up and I went, 'I'm going to protect it'."

Taylor said that she was helped through that time in her life by the "good men" in her life, adding that she wanted to "protect [her] career" because she'd "invested in it" so much.

The former Charlie's Angels star also revealed that she finds fame "a bit silly", saying: "I don't take the idea of celebrity very seriously. I do think this cultural shift that we've had even in the last couple of years, suddenly everybody's become a bit silly. It's like, what am I going to do? Get in line behind Kim Kardashian?

"That's not my life. I have so much sense of separation. Having private issues made public made me realise the intense separation between the way it looks and the way it is. It doesn't cost me anything to separate the two."